Tennis ball retriever

ABSTRACT

A tennis ball retriever having a handle in the form of a yoke and a pair of second engaging rings interconnected by spaced bars, one of which is removable to provide for access of tennis balls picked up through the spaced bars after rolling action of the rings along the ground.

United States Patent [1 1 Falitz [4 1 Apr. 16, 1974 TENNIS BALL RETRIEVER [76] Inventor: Leonard Falitz, 35-26 Prince St.,

Bayside, NY. 11354 [22] Filed: Dec. 7, 1972 21 Appl. No.: 312,800

[52] US. Cl. 294/19 A, 214/356 [51] Int. Cl B65f 3/00 [58] Field of Search 294/19 A; 56/328 R;

V [56] 7 References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,215,293 ll/l965 Kelly et al.. 294/19 A X 3,227,298 l/l966 Shoemaker 294/19 A X Primary Examiner-Evon C. Blunk. Assistant Examiner-Johnny D. Cherry Attorney, Agent, or Firm--Norman Blumenkopf [5 7 ABSTRACT A tennis ball retriever having a handle in the form of a yoke and a pair of second engaging rings interconnected by spaced bars, one of which is removable to provide for access of tennis balls picked up through the spaced bars after rolling action of the rings along the ground. 7

1 Claim, 6 Drawing Figures TENNIS BALL RETRIEVER 1. Field of the Invention This invention relates to a tennis ball retriever and more particularly to a device for retrieving tennis balls by rolling a mechanism along the ground. During the playing of tennis and especially during practice and teaching sessions, numerous tennis balls are used for demonstration and practice strokes. The picking up of these tennis balls by hand usually requires excessive bending, which will tire the player and make learning or instructing tennis more fatiguing and less rewarding.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART Various devices have in the past been developed as tennis ball retrievers. In the Stap. US. Pat. No. 3,371,950, there is disclosed a tennis ball retriever which requires the successive pressing downof the receptacle over the tennis balls. This-has two great disad vantages, one of which is that the device still requires a stooping and bending operation. The second disadvantage is that the Stap device requires a variety of rods which are pressed over the ball and whichin actual use generally through the tiltingof the receptacle until an edgethereof strikes the tennis court causesthemarring of the surface thereof to an undesired degree. Retrievers for various ball shaped objects such as shown in US. Pat. Nos; 3,485,398, 3,227,298 and 3,215,293 have also been devisedbut have likewise provedunsatisfactory because of the excessive weight of these devices as compared to the surface ofa tennis court, which would cause marring of the surface of the court.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention overcomes the disadvantages ofthe prior art devicesby-providinganextremely lightweight tennis ball retriever which is arranged to keep spaced bars through which the tennis balls are squeezed above the surface of the ground, with the only contact with the ground being by way of a pair of spaced rings. Theconstruction of this invention features a yoke-shaped handle havingsmall discs rotatably attachedthereto which discs have spaced rings concentrically disposedthereabove and mounted thereon; A

provide a tennis ball retriever that is-lig'htinweight andsimple of construction; capable of being manufactured out of readily available materialsand which "is efficient in use.

These, together with the various ancillary objects and features of the invention which will become apparent asthe followingdescription proceeds, are attained by thistennis ball retriever, a preferredembodimentof which has been shown in the accompanyingdrawingby way of example only, wherein:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 Ba perspective view of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a sideelevational view of the tennisball retriever;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged front elevational view thereof;

2 FIG. 4 is an enlarged schematic view showing the manner in which a tennis ball is picked up;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged sectional detailed view showing the construction of the removable bar; and

FIG. 6 is a sectional detailed view looking in the di-' rection of plane of line 66 in FIG. 5.

With continuing reference to the accompanying drawing wherein like reference numerals designate similar parts throughout various views, reference numeral 10 generally designates a tennis ball retriever constructed in accordance with the concept of the present invention. The tennis ball retriever 10 includes a handle 12 in the form of a yoke 14 having a rectangular extension 16 bolted as at 17 or otherwise secured thereto. The yoke includes a pair of parallel legs 18 and 20 which have a pair of discs 22 and 24 rotatably attached thereto as by stub shafts 26, 28 or the like. A pair of spaced rings 30 and 32 are provided and are rigidly connected to thediscs' 22 and 24 by radius rods 34 and 36 which have concentric rings 38, 40 and 42, 44 attached thereto. The rings 38, 40 are spaced from each other and from the ring 30 a distance less than the diameter ofa tennis ball, and likewise the rings 42 and 44 are spaced from each other and from the ring 32 a distance less than the diameter of a tennis ball so that no tennis ball can pass therebetween.

A plurality of spaced bars 50 are welded to the inner surfaces of the rings 30 and 32 and extend therebetween. In this manner the bars 50, which can be best seen in FIG. 4, are spaced upwardly from the surface of the groundG when the tennis ball retriever is rolled along the ground. The bars 50 and 52 are spaced from eachother a distance L which isslightly less than the diameter of a tennis ball T. The tennisball T is slightly squeezed as the tennis ball retriever is passed along the ground and passes into the interior of the tennis ball retriever.

In order to permitaccessinto the interior of the tennis ball retriever, a bar is provided which is removable. In order to carry this out, two lugs 62 and 64 are provided which are welded inwardly of the rings 30 and 32and which have recesses 66 and 68therein. The bar 60 ishollow in construction anda pair of springs 70 are provided therein which press on detents 72 and 74 urging theminto recesses 66 and 681 The bar 60 has slots 76therein through which actuators 78extend, whichactuators when moved in the direction of arrow A to the position as shown in dotted lines in FIG. 5, will release the detents 72 and 74 from within the recesses 66and" 68 to thereby permit removal of the bar 60.

In use, the tennis ball retriever is rolled along the ground, picking up balls by squeezing them through the adjacent bars 50. When it is desired to remove the balls from the retriever, the bar 60 may be removed and all of the ballsdumped into any convenient receptacle as desired.

A latitude of modification, substitution and changeis intended in the foregoing disclosure, and in some instancessome features of the invention will be employed without a corresponding use of other features.

I claim:

1. A tennis ball retriever comprising a yoke, a pair of spaced mounting discs rotatably attached to said yoke, a pair of spaced rings concentrically disposed about each of said discs, each of said pair of said rings being spaced from each other a distance less than the diameter of a tennis ball mounting means connecting said 4 said pairs of rings extending inwardly from the periphery thereof, said lugs having recesses therein, said one bar being hollow, detents movably disposed in said one bar, and springs in said bar urging said detents into said IGCeSSCS. 

1. A tennis ball retriever comprising a yoke, a pair of spaced mounting discs rotatably attached to said yoke, a pair of spaced rings concentrically disposed about each of said discs, each of said pair of said rings being spaced from each other a distance less than the diameter of a tennis ball mounting means connecting said rings to said discs, a plurality of bars extending between and interconnecting said rings, said bars being inwardly spaced from the outer periphery of the outermost of each pair of spaced rings, said bars being spaced from each other less than the diameter of a tennis ball, one of said bars being removable, lugs on the outermost of said pairs of rings extending inwardly from the periphery thereof, said lugs having recesses therein, said one bar being hollow, detents movably disposed in said one bar, and springs in said bar urging said detents into said recesses. 